The use of cranes to remove debris from elevated work sites is commonplace. One such use is in the roofing industry. The old materials making up a worn roof must be torn up and removed to ground level for disposal. It is common in such instances to fill a cargo bag with the old roofing debris, and lift the bag from the roof to the ground with a crane. The cargo bags used to carry the debris typically comprise a generally flat canvas material having a plurality of corner loops along its peripheral edge. When attached to an elevated hook by its corner loops, the canvas takes the shape of a cargo retaining bag.
Refuse-carrying cargo bags are typically coupled to the operating cable of a crane by a hook. A worker must be stationcd on the roof to attach the corner loops of the cargo bag to the hook. A second worker is required to operate the crane. In conventional operations, a third worker must be stationed at ground level to disengage the cargo bag loops from the crane hook. Stationing a worker at ground level to release the cargo bag presents a safety hazard to the ground level worker since debris can fall from the cargo bag onto the worker as the bag is lowered to the ground. Moreover, stationing a worker on the ground at the drop off point is an inefficient use of labor, since the worker must wait idle during often lengthy intervals between loads.